Promises, promises

If you visit the website http://www.fuelprotest.com you’ll be invited to sign a petition and be informed that “of the 95p you pay at the pump, 66.6p goes to Gordon Brown”. Odd that they’ve not changed that name. And the sum. Let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good politically motivated campaign. I’m sure you’ve not forgotten that it was the Conservatives who organised a day of protest on 29 July 2000 in order to draw our attention, they said at the time, to the rise in prices under Labour. The Institute of Directors subsequently estimated that the cost of the Conservative inspired protest was £1 billion.So that’s one of the blackholes down which they claim the money went under Labour. The Tories were also helped in the campaign by various of their chums such as the farmers, led by David Handley who was also a mate of senior Conservative Mark McGregor, and the haulage industry including Andrew Spence, both a farmer and haulier as well as one time BNP candidate for Sedgefield, when they organised protests later in 2007 and even as late as 2010. More of the populist stuff designed to get people to vote them in, even though the policy cannot be delivered.

William Hague (who has something to do with the current government, I believe) when he was in opposition criticised the incumbent government for raising fuel taxes. he has been untypically quiet now that his own side has pumped up prices even further. Just look at the graph on fuel comparison sites and watch the rise since the General Election. At the same time the Liberal Democrats also had a pop at the government on the fuel issue. Whatever became of them? Brynle Williams, a red-faced farming Conservative member of the Welsh Assembly threatened that if fuel prices continued to rise there could be more protests. I hope he’s keeping his word and is busy organising blockades as I write.

So will all this now backfire? Will ordinary people who were given expectations and who voted Tory revive the protests, or will the Conservatives’ die-hards and backwoodsmen, who are out on the right of the party and who don’t like the presence of Clegg and his cronies in ministerial panoply, bring the whole house of cards tumbling down?